PowerMacOberon Version 4.0 is a full implementation of Oberon that behaves just like every other Oberon V4 system. However, the Macintosh implementation has several additional features that make use of some of the nicer capabilities built into the Macintosh operating system. These additional features are described below.
Installable Menu Texts
The distribution includes four text files, which are installed automatically in the menu bar of the respective viewers.
Edit.Menu.Text (Edit.Open)
System.Menu.Text (System.Open)
Log.Menu.Text (System.OpenLog)
Draw.Menu.Text (Draw.Open)
Their contents will be used automatically as replacements for the default menu texts appearing in viewer titles. The menu_text_files are freely editable by you and give a good demonstation of how to use the newly improved PopupElements in menu bars. This feature should be especially useful for PowerBook users.
Longtime users of PowerMacOberon also note the updated documentation of PopupElements in DK.Elem.Guide.Text.
QuickDraw and PostScript Printing
PowerMacOberon supports several different print architectures concurrently. The printer name is used to distinguish between available options. Currently defined are the following:
QuickDraw Send output to the default printer selected in
the Chooser, substituting the "Helvetica" font
in place of "Syntax" (to avoid downloading
of the Syntax bitmap font).
(requires QuickDrawPrinter.Obj)
32_bit QuickDraw Support
PowerMacOberon is based on 32_bit QuickDraw. It reserves a palette of sixteen colours for animation, of which colous 0..3 and 15 are predefined while the remaining can be defined by the user. Calls to Display.SetColor and Display.GetColor now work as described in the Oberon System book (Oberon's RGB_Values in the range 0..255 are scaled for the Macintosh by multiplying them with 101H).
A tool is available for editing colours interactively: Colors.Open. (Click on a colour to open an edit viewer, then use ML to change the red, green and blue component. Press any other mouse button during editing to revert to the previous setting).
Font Scaling
For the benefit of users that have only small screens, PowerMacOberon automatically scales down the appearance of the Syntax font by about 20%, when a screen width of less than 1024 is detected. If you wish to disable this mechanism, open the PowerMacOberon application using ResEdit and change the ".Ob5" ressource named "Macintosh.SyntaxFontName" from "Automatic" to either "SyntaxO", which will give you large fonts always, or "SyntaxR", which will result in small fonts always.
Fully Configurable Menus
PowerMacOberon's Apple_Style menus in the menu bar are interpreted at the time of activation, just like normal commands appearing inside the Oberon window. Unlike other applications for the Macintosh, PowerMacOberon has no knowledge about what command appears at which position in which menu. Consequently, the menus are fully configurable by the user.
Using ResEdit, any command may be put into the menu bar of the PowerMacOberon application. Menus and menu items may be added and deleted. Calling a command from the menu bar is very similar to calling it from an Oberon text, except that the value of "Oberon.Par" is set to an empty text prior to command activation.
If Oberon fails to find a valid command in a selected menu item, it will attempt to open a desk accessory using the string found in the menu. As a consequence, the names of desk accessories (or other apple menu folder items) can be placed in any of PowerMacOberon's menus.
Extended Font Support
PowerMacOberon supports arbitrary font sizes and styles. The usual Oberon font naming conventions are used to refer to fonts that are stored in the System file (and not within the PowerMacOberon application). For example, in order to convert the most recent selection into a bold typeface of the Helvetica font in a size of 143 points, one would use the command
Edit.ChangeFont Helvetica143b.Scn.Fnt
In order to aid users that wish to use one of the standard Macintosh fonts instead of the "Syntax" font supplied with Oberon, PowerMacOberon allows users to define an alias name for "Syntax". If the ".Ob5" ressource named "Macintosh.SyntaxFontName" is changed to a value other than "Syntax", PowerMacOberon will automatically supply that other font whenever "Syntax" is requested. This applies to all font sizes and styles.
The name of the default font is extracted from the ".Ob5" ressource named "Fonts.DefaultFontName". This may also be changed to any font present in the system. However, users have to be aware of the fact that the default font only applies to text newly being generated. Documents stored on a file will continue to appear in the font that was used in their creation. The appearance of existing documents may be changed by defining an alias name for "Syntax".
Changing the default font is useful mainly for choosing another font size. The screen metrics of the whole Oberon system, including the height of viewers, the spacing of lines in standard text frames and the width of scroll bars will scale automatically to reflect the height of the new default font.
Full Support of the Clipboard
PowerMacOberon supports styled text information in the Macintosh clipboard. The commands Clipboard.Cut , Clipboard.Copy and Clipboard.Paste work in the usual manner. The clipboard can be displayed by executing the command Clipboard.Show. In standard textframes Command-X, Command-C and Command-V may be used as well. Selection copied or deleted by mouse commands are stored in the clipboard as well.
Extended Textframes
The cursor up & down keys are now funcional as well as the Del key which deletes characters to the right of the caret. You may move to the end or start of the current line by pressing END or HOME. By pressing page up or page down you move the cursor respectively.
The Oberon scrollbars are quite unlike the ones used in standard Macintosh applications. If you prefer scrollbars more like these, you can rename the file 'TextFrames3.Obj' in the directory 'System' to 'TextFrames.Obj'. To switch back to standard Oberon like scrollbars restore the old 'TextFrames.Obj'.
By interclicking the right mouse button when pressing the middle mouse button, a file can be loaded automatically.
Interrupting of commands
To interrupt a unwanted command or an endless loop, the key-combination
-. can be pressed. The command will be stopped and a trap viewer is opened.
File: PowerMacOberonV4.Text / Michael Franz, 1.1.94 / M. Hof 29.6.94
(.txt)